


Civil War

by LadyCharity



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Deathfic, Gen, In which Thor and Loki's lives pretty much just suck, Loki Feels, Norse Bro Feels, Possessed by Tesseract theory, Thor Feels, Tragedy, how do i use this thing, how many tags am i allowed, ramblings of a writer at 1AM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCharity/pseuds/LadyCharity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers." --Francois Fenelon </p><p>Thor finds out that Loki has been possessed the entire duration of his invasion of Midgard, but it is too late. He finally does what Fury had demanded he be prepared for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Civil War

**Author's Note:**

> I published this at first on Tumblr but I thought, hey, this new site, AO3, it looks pretty snazzy, why not give it a try? Just a short little thing I wrote at 1AM in a college dormitory. Enjoy!

Madness. This was madness. More so. It was torture. Each blow was torture.

Swipe.

Dodge.

Lunge.

Bleed.

It was an act against nature. Against fate, against logic and reason. And far above, against his heart.

But he couldn’t think of it, couldn’t reason with himself or convince himself one way or another. He could only feel his heart pang each moment he swung his fist at Loki—at his brother. Fight to hurt his little brother. Fight to—

Thor grabbed Loki’s wrist. Felt the bone under his hand, the wrist, the tense muscle. Felt that he was alive, and burning. Like fire replaced all blood and he was fit to explode.

Loki was always cold. Always chilled, as if nothing could touch him. Nothing could ruin him. Now he was a supernova, set to destroy. Set to implode and burn bright.

“Look at this! Look around you, Loki,” said Thor over the cacophony of destruction around him. Death. It was Death’s voice they heard, that spoke, that sang so giddily it almost made Thor’s ears bleed. It was the people he had learned to love that suffered under the crushing blows by the hundreds—thousands, maybe. “Do you think this madness will end with your rule?”

Loki stiffened in Thor’s grasp and for a moment Thor saw his little brother again—young Loki, who once cried when his magic sprained a rabbit’s foot, who made bullfrogs sprout out of teapots, who once looked Thor in the eye and told him to never doubt his love for him. And perhaps Loki remembered that long-ago past too, where the merciless horrors that cracked around them were still frightening and unthinkable. Thor could almost hear the crumbling buildings and screams echo in Loki’s mind as the reality shook him to the core—people were losing their lives, innocent people, because of him.

“It’s too late,” Loki said, his voice torn. The rawness of his words nearly wounded Thor, just by the sound of it. How tired Loki sounded, how hopeless and harsh and desperately lost. Why was Thor fighting him, when he was so suffering? He couldn’t remember, and his ruthless grip on Loki’s arm felt poisonous—wrong. “It’s too late to stop it.”

“No,” Thor breathed. It took so much of him to stop from jumping in elation, from screaming for joy, because he believed—he had faith—his brother was alive, was back, would return home. “We can. Together.”

And then a look crossed Loki’s eyes that Thor did not expect. Hurt. Raw, undeniable, unfathomable pain glinted in those pale eyes, rimmed with red and tears. Thor loosened his grip on him slightly, imagining the two reunited brothers taking arms against the violent Chitauri, rebuilding the Earth, grasping each other as they were taken home again, to be a family again—

Pain shot through his side and he stumbled back. Thor could not mistake the sharp, traitorous dagger in him digging through his flesh, parched for blood. Loki stepped back, breathing heavily, a weak smile on his face as a single tear fell from his blue gaze, almost unnoticed.

“Sentiment,” he murmured.

He turned. Turned back to the battlefield he had led to its death, to the loss and pain, and took it with a smile. To destroy worlds, to ruin lives, destroy what Thor loved—

Thor reached out—

—and pulled Loki back before he could fall.

Dagger still in side, he wrenched it out and threw it aside. He hurled Loki to the ground, sending the golden helmet off of his head. Gripping the handle of Mjolner, he swung his hammer at Loki. A hit to the shoulder slammed Loki against the glass windows of Stark Tower. Another swing was foiled by the scepter. The third crushed bones in his left arm.

“This is more like it,” Loki said with a feral growl. A jet of power knocked Thor off his feet. Thor rolled out of the way before the scepter could plunge into his chest.

Fight him.

Thor gathered himself to his feet, his side still stinging with betrayal.

Loki shot another beam of electric blue light at him. Thor flung himself out of the way. The magic caught the corner of a building and sent it toppling to the sidewalk, narrowly pounding people below.

Fight him.

Thor clenched his teeth and smashed Mjolner into Loki’s side. Loki fell, but his magic did not. It roared with vengeance and fury, not to Thor, but to the city. Empires fell. Histories crumbled. Lives—spent.

“Stop!” Thor said, his heart tearing as people were slaughtered beneath them like ants. How creatures so petty and tiny became so dear to him, none would understand. That was love, that they could be as weak or as strong as can be and it would not make a difference.

Fight him.

“End this, brother, or I shall,” Thor cried out.

Loki pulled himself back onto his feet, heaving for air. Blood tinged his thin lips, and his icy eyes were wide and their gaze jagged. For a moment, Thor couldn’t recognize him.

It nearly destroyed him.

“Then come on,” Loki said. Another blow of magic scuffed Thor’s shoulder, leaving scorched metal and singed fabric. Thor battled the scepter with Mjolner, using all his strength to keep its aim from the city. Loki’s destruction was going beyond his control, until magic swelled and flooded from the scepter and poured like a scourge through the city, killing, hurting, ravaging.

What are you prepared to do, Thor?

“Kill no more, Loki!” said Thor. “Do not punish the innocent for the wrongs done upon you.”

Loki did not appear to listen, only swiping his golden scepter and letting the sickly, poisonous magic pour into the cities. The Chitauri were nothing—nothing compared to the God of Mischief at his utmost potential.

And Thor realized he was afraid.

Afraid of his own little brother.

“Midgard will fall to my feet,” said Loki. “Nothing can stop them. Not even you, golden prince of Asgard, with all your glory.”

Thor swung Mjolner until it splintered the scepter from Loki’s hands, toppling both ends far out of his reach. He almost took a breath of relief, thinking he ended the magical onslaught, until he saw Loki’s hands glow with terrible power. It writhed like snakes between his fingers, rearing its deadly head, aimed not to Thor but to the civilians.

What are you prepared to do?

“NO!”

Thor could not stop, could not hesitate or think. He grabbed one fractured end of the scepter from the ground. Its touch burned, as if too aware of what crime would happen next.

He ran forth.

Loki—magic pouring from himself to destroy—exerting all that he held within him to murder—

Thor reached Loki before he even noticed.

No more.

There wasn’t a tussle. Not a fight. No struggle.

End this.

I must, thought Thor. I must.

There’s no return.

He gripped the scepter tighter.

There’s no hope.

People’s screams. People’s lives, vanishing. No more.

Only this.

He plunged the deadly blade into Loki’s chest.

The magic sputtered at Loki’s slender fingertips before oozing away like venom into nothingness. Loki stiffened, taking a sharp breath as his own weapon skewered his heart. He couldn’t breathe, and neither could Thor.

Thor raised his eyes to Loki’s for what he knew was the last time.

He nearly screamed.

Loki’s eyes—eyes that had been strikingly, scarily, beautifully blue as they fought—were green.

Painfully, ruefully, truthfully—green.

“No,” Thor whispered.

Loki’s eyes widened—first with confusion, then fear, then understanding—and his knees grew weak under him. Thor was ready to catch him, easing him to the ground. The guilty scepter slipped from his shaking grasp.

“No, it can’t be,” Thor said in a strangled voice.

He knew it. He should have known. Loki was not made for such murder. He never was.

No, no, no what had he done what had he done WHAT HAD HE DONE--?

“Loki, Loki, Loki,” Thor cried. He felt numb inside, and yet why did it hurt so much? “Please—I did not know. I never should have. Please—”

Loki barely had the strength to lift his head. Blood poured from his chest, from his lips onto ivory skin. Green eyes gazed up at Thor’s face without a single accusation, tinged with sadness. With regret. Remorse.

“Stay with me, Loki!” said Thor. “This can't be happening--no--please! Don’t go, please don’t go. Don’t leave me again—”

He thought he lost his brother when he fell from the Bifrost. Thought he lost him when he was thrown from the hellicarrier in a glass cage, hurtling to the Earth toward possible death. Thought he lost him when he was stabbed in the side. Now, his brother had returned, was found—and he had killed him.

“HAVE MERCY!” he screamed to the Norns, to fate, to Death herself, anyone. “I beg of you, have mercy! Do not take him away from me! Take me, take me instead!”

But none were tearing Loki from his arms. He had done it himself.

Thor’s free hand flew wildly over Loki’s chest, trying to find a way to stem the inevitable flow of blood. Loki’s magic had dwindled too much to heal, and Thor had nothing but battle within him to do anything. Anything—he had to do anything. He tore his cloak from his shoulders and pressed it against the too deep wound. He cradled Loki in his arms, trying to keep him warm and safe as the world around them crumbled. As his world took its last breaths.

“I’m so sorry,” Thor wept. “I’m so sorry. I failed you. I’m so sorry.”

The Chitauri screeched around them and fell. Thor did not understand what had occurred, but the portal had sewn shut and the gruesome monsters toppled. But he could not understand this victory, nor accept it, as his brother grew colder in his arms.

Loki tried to speak, but he could no longer breathe as blood flooded his lungs. He raised a shaking white hand and Thor grasped it immediately. Loki returned the grip and Thor’s heart hurt terribly. He was here, Loki—the little brother that loved him so. He was here, and dying.

Loki’s eyes—the green eyes Thor had known since he first began remembering—spoke when he could not. As if to say, it was okay. It’s finished. It’s done.

Peace.

His cold hand slackened its grip on Thor’s and his body became limp. Eyelids drooped until the green eyes saw no more and his head fell back. Thor tried to scream Loki’s name, tried to cry, but grief overcame his voice as his brother died in his arms by his own hand. Nothing, not even the voice of his older brother (the pleas) could restore breath in Loki's lungs, blood in his body, light in his heart--

Footsteps crunched behind him as he cradled Loki’s body, but Thor had no strength to turn his head to see who it was.

He was so, so tired.

“Thor?” someone said. He couldn’t recognize the voice anymore.

Thor cradled Loki to his chest, his blood staining his own armor. In death he could recognize Loki again, as if Loki was sleeping, and there was nothing to fear, nothing to mourn about anymore. That they would return home tomorrow as he hoped.

They were both homeless now.

“It was never him,” Thor said. “And I killed him.”

He had dreamed of a reunion. Of an embrace of love and brotherhood. Of a family that was mended, that was finally whole.

Now, he no longer dreamed.


End file.
